Children, Schools and Families Bill

I agree. It is not merely a case of identifying certain individuals who did not perform the job to the required standard. It is necessary to find out why. Were there enough staff to cover the cases? Was the case overload too great? That has been the situation in many local authorities. Were resources not available when they were needed? Was all the work going on in the department reactive rather than preventive? Were social workers spending far too much time at their computers, having to fill in assessment forms, as is now the case? According to Unison, up to 80 per cent. of a social worker's time in child protection is spent filling in assessment forms, rather than at the sharp end with those children. Surely the most likely way of preventing harm to vulnerable children and families is for a professional, well-trained, well-resourced and well-motivated social worker to knock on a door and spend quality face-to-face time with that vulnerable family and the child. The social worker would then be able to make an informed decision as to whether intervention was required and at what level, rather than trying to second-guess it from a computer screen or from papers a long distance away in an office. Serious case reviews should consider and analyse such questions in order to draw conclusions and make recommendations. That cannot be properly communicated in the space of an 11-page executive summary, whether or not it is called comprehensive, and that is the sort of thing that we need to know.